(first off, here’s my first attempt at some Star Wars fan art!)
SPOILER ALERT – for those of you who haven’t seen this pure awesomeness (although highly unlikely) kindly watch the damn thing NOW! Seriously, why wouldn’t you have seen it yet?
Lameness is a disease. It’s time to go see a doctor about that. 😛
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Okay, so based on the above statements my love for the movie ain’t no secret, so has the majority of the moviegoing audience’s who has seen the movie.
Personally, and this is largely arguable, this is best Star Wars movie I have ever seen.
Why? To put it simply, it combines a great script, that’s superior to the crap from Episodes I, II and III, with the right amount of practical and CGI effects that’s updated to today’s visual standards, all wrapped up in a hugely enjoyable space opera that’s both nostalgic and refreshing.
In other words, I think Force Awakens is a great bridge to move the old school fans into a brand new universe, at the same time piquing the interest of new fans by giving the franchise a much needed update.
While my statement “best Star Wars movie ever” is largely arguable (yes, I know Empire Strikes Back should be THE best, but well, it’s a very close second), there’s a more important question I have:
Will the new TRILOGY be superior to the old ones?
In a cinematic world that’s increasingly seeing more integrated movie franchises, I have started to treat individual movies from a franchise as simply a small part of a larger whole, a larger story that merits an assessment on its own. There’s Lord of the Rings, the Dark Knight, The Matrix, and let’s not forget the hugely extensive Marvel Cinematic Universe – the key movies in each of these franchises, in varying degrees, are hard for me to isolate from the whole franchise, because each of them play a key role in telling the full story.
In the same sense, and I think even more so, “The Force Awakens” / “Episode VII” will have to be largely connected to Episodes VIII and IX to become a more purposeful movie, especially because of the so many unanswered questions it leaves the audience with…
…which undoubtedly compels the die hard geeks to watch it multiple times to get scraps of hints from JJ Abrams evil cloud of mystery (I would’ve seen Force Awakens three times already upon publishing this blog post still trying to figure out the larger purpose of Han Solo’s death)
So how can this new sequel trilogy kick the crap out of the older ones? Here are some thoughts…
Breakaway, if not at least meet the standards of modern plot twists
It’s true that Episode V’s “I Am Your Father” reveal has made that movie best in the whole franchise in many people’s lists But in these modern times where every kind of plot twist imaginable has been used across movies and television, a reliance on this kind of reveal won’t astonish the modern viewer.
Admittedly, the revelation of Kylo Ren as Han Solo’s son was nothing too surprising, and neither was Han’s slightly predictable death scene. And with Rey’s true identity the main subject of the multitude of fan theories, I haven’t come across a surprisingly refreshing one yet (save this one, to which I share the same theory with…but unfortunately he published first).
If Episode VIII-IX wants to wow the current audience with more unexpected twists, they’ll need to think schizo, multiple-personality protagonist (ala Fight Club), incestuous and everyone’s expendable (ala Game of Thrones), double / triple agent seemingly evil side character (ala Harry Potter), lying sonofabitch type stuff (ala The Usual Suspects), or the main guy is actually a ghost (ala Sixth Sense).
I mean, I want a plot twist WITHIN the plot twist.
For example:
Rey is the long lost love child of Luke Skywalker whose memories were erased via Jedi mind-wipe to protect her from the clutches of the Ren and Snoke —- (pretty obvious plot twist)
BUT (here comes the twist within the plot twst), the Luke Skywalker Rey sees in that island is actually a force ghost and/or a figment of her imagination that lives in her brain and at the end she figures out she’s been training herself.
Whuuuuut???? Mind…blown.
Okay maybe the actual writers of the trilogy can do a better job. But you get my point.
More Complex, “Gray Area” Characters
The previous installments of Star Wars portrayed a more clear cut line between good and evil: The Sith through Emperor Palpatine / Darth Maul (and Vader to some extent) was the epitome of diabolical assholery, while the Jedi, through the likes of Obi Wan and Yoda, were beacons of righteousness. And we see our main protagonists, Anakin and Luke, struggle to pick a side.
For the audience however, this leaves us clear and simple choice that we’re generally all rooting for: PICK THE JEDI. Duh!
What if the new trilogy made this decision much harder, not just for the characters, but for the audience? I’m thinking like House of Cards, in where we’re left confused whether to rood for the “good” and “bad” guys because we can sympathize with both their struggles.
We’ve already seen some wavering between the light and dark side from Kylo Ren. But why not make his master, Snoke, a tragic character the viewer can empathize with — like he’s a victim of abusive Jedi.
Or Luke as this diabolical mastermind who concocted a plan to get Han Solo killed just so Ren can get close to Snoke. He feels like shit because he had his friend killed. But oh well, all for the greater good, right?
For that matter, let’s make Poe Dameron a traitor, who was forced to give Resistance secrets to the First Order because his family his being held hostage — or something to that effect. Remember he just totally disappeared and left Finn when their TIE fighter crashed. Seriously, bro, how hard was it to walk just a few hundred meters down the desert to look for our newfound buddy.
(drawing of Poe talking to Kylo after the crash)
I suspect some shady dealings happened.
And why not add a more of a human side to Captain Phasma, who I though was largely underutilized in the recent movie. Some sob backstory such as her parents’ death could be part of the collateral damage from the Rebels’ / Republics warring against the Empire.
At the end of the day, if our current earthly realm is composed of complex people who are neither fully good, nor fully bad, why should vastly more advanced intergalactic societies seen in Star Wars be portrayed much more simplistically?
Less Science and Politics, More Action and Drama
This is more of a cautionary warning, coming from Episodes I, II and III, in where George Lucas infuses the storyline with hemes and buzzwords like “trade negotiations”, “midichlorians”, or “Order 66” in a vain attempt to give the Star Wars prequels a weightier feel of sophistication.
The result: convoluted plot lines, a lot of senseless talking and Jedi chin-stroking, that made the movie seem more like a steaming pile of Sith1.
The truth is, Star Wars is more of a space fantasy than science fiction. As an audience, we already bought into the idea that this is a highly fictionalized universe in where we can openly accept and take for granted the science of lightsabers, Death Stars / Starkillers, or the Force, and the politics involved to create a functioning federation of thousands of space-faring intergalactic societies.
More contemporary pieces of fiction have done a better job in expanding on such meatier, sophisticated topics. Game of Thrones did a splendid job in integrating the complex political dynamics in a fully fantasized world. While movies such as Interstellar, the Martian or Gravity did great in putting in graspable, more realistic science as part of the narrative.
But fans don’t love Star Wars because of the science nor the sociopolitical discourse.
We love Star Wars for the grandeur of the universe it portrays, which includes clashing lightsabers, dog-fighting X-Wings and TIE fighters, sweeping vistas of exotic alien worlds, and their subsequent destruction.
We love Star Wars because of it portrays the all-so-human elements of love and chivalry, friendship and betrayal, and of course the universal, unending struggle between good and evil.
Now, I don’t think that science and politics shouldn’t find a place at all in the new trilogy. Small doses of them will do just to set the context of the story. But in the needlessly huge amount of screen time, for example, the Senate with all their committee meetings and special sessions got on the prequel trilogy.
Thank god they all got blown to hell on the latest flick.
More Answers, Less Questions
There’s A LOT of them, so I won’t bother listing out all the unanswered questions, simply because it’s been largely discussed online already. If you want a decent list, go the Verge’s article that outlines the key ones, how intriguing they are, and if later films may address them.
Now, we know JJ Abrams co-wrote The Force Awakens, and if we learned anything from his work on “Lost”, he might only answer SOME of them.
Good thing we know that he’s not a writer on Episodes VIII and IX, so let’s hope we get some damn answers.
Unless we’re being set up for a sequel to the sequel trilogy, Disney, you crafty bastards.
Ambiguity has no place in Star Wars dangit! This is not a Cohen brothers film.
More Lightsaber Battles
This is pretty self-explanatory! More like the ones in Episode III, please!
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Alright, that pretty much sums it up. I hope you kids get to the enjoy the movie at least one more time, because it is worth a second watch. If not for the sake of over-analysis, just do it because you genuinely enjoyed the film.
Also, these repeat views can help this film become the highest grossing film of all time, and beat those tree hugging hippies at “Avatar”.
1 I borrowed that line from Maddox’s review of Episode 3
humid monkey 